(WFSB) – As children in Connecticut prepare for the new school year, some parents are desperately wondering how to arrange child care.
Previously, any child who turned five before January 1 could go to kindergarten. However, the new law in Connecticut changes that. A child must be five years old by September 1 to attend a public elementary school, unless there is an exception for a four-year-old child that allows him or her to start kindergarten earlier.
Parents of so-called “super babies” born between September and December told Channel 3’s Tracey McCain they had little guidance from the government and little time to work, with many of them only planning their next steps a week before school started.
“When we heard about it, it was a punch in the gut,” said Michelle Rice. “I thought, oh my gosh, this is going to have such a big impact on us, financially and on my daughter’s growth and development,” said Rice, a mother of two.
Rice’s daughter Haylee turns five in October and Cara September’s son Hunter turns five a few weeks later, in November.
“It was surprising how quickly they took the information and shared it. They really didn’t take into account the financial impact and burden on the families, the children and even the daycare centers,” September said. “I wasn’t sure how I was going to manage this gap year.”
A provision in the law required school districts to offer a waiver or kindergarten readiness assessment. Parents could request an exception to enroll their child in public kindergarten early. If that didn’t work, parents had to send their child back to daycare for another year.
““I work full time, but I’m also a single mother, so I wasn’t expecting these costs this year, which was a big blow,” September said.
“That means thousands and thousands of dollars in additional child care costs for us,” Rice said. “I knew my daughter was ready to start now. We thought she needed to be there. She needed to learn and grow at a kindergarten level.”
Daycare for one child can cost between $15,000 and $22,000 per year.
“I’ll find a way. I’ll do whatever it takes to get them in,” Rice admitted.
Haylee passed her school district’s literacy test and will start kindergarten at age 4. She wants as many parents as possible to know about this option because she believes most parents were unaware of it before the law was introduced this year.
“Follow your gut. You know your child better than anyone else and strive to abstain even if you have doubts,” Rice said.
Cara September hoped the state had planned better.
“I felt like there could have been a transition period of a year or two, or they could have changed the birthday scale in the first year and then had the full impact in the second year. Anything more than, hey, this is in the news and this is what happened and now you have to figure it out with your program and on your own, I just thought that was a little unfair,” September said.
September will leave her four-year-old son at BrightPath Simsbury, where he has been attending preschool classes.
“I felt sorry for him because the transition to kindergarten is an exciting experience and he won’t be able to experience that. I thought he was in preschool, so will he repeat the same program?”
Libby Marek is the center director at BrightPath Simsbury. She says the children’s education center has developed a program for students in this transition period. But it’s not free.
““It’s an extended program of our preschool program to prepare them for kindergarten skills,” Marek said. “The program is included in regular school fees.”
Starting in August, each of BrightPath’s 22 Connecticut locations will have a traditional kindergarten program. The curriculum builds on students’ preschool skills and helps families navigate this extra year.
“We don’t want to repeat ourselves, we don’t want to repeat ourselves. We want to give them the joy of learning and get them excited about school even before kindergarten,” said Marek.
Eighteen students are enrolled in BrightPath Simsbury’s Transitional Kindergarten program, with space available at each location.
School districts implemented similar programs to accommodate four-year-olds affected by the new kindergarten age law.
Dr. Jeff Solan, superintendent of Cheshire Public Schools, says he also had to consider expected declines in enrollment and ways to avoid staff cuts.
“Families and school systems were caught off guard a little bit. It’s interesting because school inspectors have been advocating for the law change for a long time. We were one of the few states in America that hadn’t yet passed kindergarten for children as young as five. We had been advocating for it for some time. It just happened quite abruptly and we had to pivot,” Solan said.
For CPS, this change in course meant creating something new for students born after September 1. It was also a way to save teacher positions that could have been eliminated due to the sudden drop in kindergarten enrollment.
“We wanted to provide an interim solution that would support our local daycare centers that were unable to handle enrollment, support our families who didn’t know what to do in this situation, and support our teachers. We didn’t want to reduce the number of teachers even though we knew enrollment would drop,” Solan said.
School districts from Cheshire to Bridgeport implemented low-cost, full-day transitional kindergarten programs so that four-year-olds born during those four months could build on their preschool skills while waiting another year to transition to public elementary school.
“The programs are for students who need financial assistance, and that is the majority of students who attend Bridgeport Public Schools. We have waiting lists, but for students who want to use the services, they are available. We have many services that we offer to students in Pre-K 3 and Pre-K 4 through our partners,” said Carmela Levy David.
In Cheshire, the program is not needs-based, but there is a flat fee.
“The cost of the program is $5,500 per student for the entire year. We don’t want to make a profit from it, but we had to cover the running costs,” Solan said.
Jenn Prinz, a mother of two from Cheshire, has enrolled her four-year-old daughter Marjorie in the school district’s transitional kindergarten program. She will pay the fee in installments throughout the year at Darcey Elementary.
“I want her to make the transition with the tools they have for kindergarten, so I thought, ‘Let’s do this. There’s no doubt about it,'” Prinz said. “We wanted to hold onto her, especially for the social-emotional part, because they learn so much so quickly starting in kindergarten.”
The Office of Early Childhood says about 9,000 children in Connecticut will be affected by the earlier deadline, but not all four-year-olds will have to stay home.
“The law included a provision that families who wanted their children to start kindergarten early, that is, when they were not yet five years old on September 1, could write to the district and request an evaluation,” said Marlene Silano, Cheshire’s assistant principal.
According to Silano, 60 students in Cheshire did not meet the Sept. 1 age limit. Parents of 33 students requested an exception and an assessment for early entry into kindergarten. Thirteen students met the criteria and will begin kindergarten when school starts in August.
The transitional kindergarten program doesn’t repeat the skills students learned in preschool, but builds on them so they’re ready for kindergarten. At last check, 40 students were enrolled in the program, enough for two classes, but it will only be short-lived. Dr. Solan says the one-year program will give parents and students a buffer year until everyone gets used to the new kindergarten changes.
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